Category Archives: Animals

As I said earlier, the reason I wasn’t able to make another BRT this week was due to my vacation in California. I had an AMAZING time! Figured I might as well showcase a few of my highlights from my vacation. Enjoy!

Our first stop after landing was Meltdown Comics in LA. MAN, it was such a fantastic comic shop! I’m really sad it’s closing.

But hey-at least I got a few Meltdown stickers, as well as a B.P.R.D. trade paperback (which I held up like Rafiki holding Simba in The Lion King the entire duration of the visit). I ended up reading it at least six times. Yep.

Believe it or not, this is Sequoia National Park. Not Isla Nublar.

*Jurassic Park theme blaring* *T-Rex roar*

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These two were taken at the Giant Forest, which houses many giant Sequoias. They were soooo beautiful! One of the park rangers suggested that we hug one of them while we were at the park, and described it as “like hugging a wall”. As it turned out, that was fairly accurate. 😜

These were all taken by Hospital Rock, which was fairly close to the park entrance. I swear, if there’s any place on Earth (*ahem* Orbona) that’s most like the Wandering Forest, it had to be there. I honestly wouldn’tve been surprised if some of the vegetation got up and ate a bird or something.

(Psst, anyone know the way to the heart?)

General Sherman, the world’s largest tree!

Lake Hume, in King’s Canyon National Park.

On a far weirder note…this monstrosity was in this tiny, sketchy town near Sequoia. The only reason we could think of to construct such a thing was to scare off them ‘squatches.

Who knows.

We visited the NHMLA after our visit to Sequoia. I had an amazing time, and I enjoyed a bit of geeking out and childhood nostalgia. Here we have the skulls of an Einiosaurus, Styracosaurous, and Triceratops.

SQUAAAAAAAAWK!

I forget what the thing on the left is, but whatever it is, it CRACKS ME UP. (Also, that poor lil Hyracotherium is in for a big surprise…)

“REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!!”

Pakicetus, one of the first whale ancestors. I kinda had a mental freakout when I saw this guy, as I grew up watching waaaaaay too much Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. (Okay, technically the one they have is Ambulocetus, which evolved some time later, but you get the idea.)

Over Thanksgiving break, my mom was digging through some old CDs, and found a bunch of old photos in the process. They were all from around 2007, when I was about four years old.

I had no memory of when we had gotten two of our cats-Anakin and Padme-because, y’know, I was really little. (They are both about 10 years old, cousins, and totally inseparable <3) So I was surprised when my mom uncovered these…

This is little kitten Padme!!! AAAH! HOW WAS SHE EVER THAT SMALL????? (She’s kinda overweight now, poor thing. Sorry, Padme…)

And here’s little kitten Anakin!!! This, along with most of the other photos, were taken on the day we adopted this little Sith lord. What a cutie.

Spending time with his loving cousin. Look at those eyes!!!

Um…don’t know what’s going on here…

…Hugs?

Along with the kitten pictures came a photo of me on Halloween when I was about three. I was Princess Leia, for the second time (I had been her when I was two as well).

Great expression, huh? So regal.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my unannounced slew of kitten pictures as much as I enjoyed seeing them. Meow.

So last night, after watching the first two Hunger Games movies (which were awesome), I had a little time before I had to go to bed. So I decided to draw. Normally, I draw fictional characters about 75% of the time, but I couldn’t think of anyone to draw. But eventually, this squirmed its way out of my head and onto the page of my sketchbook:

I still have no idea what prompted it, but I love it anyway.

As I said on my Instagram post, I knew that this wouldn’t end with just one drawing. I mean, HOW COULD IT? I mean, LOOK AT THAT MERMAID THING!

…Mermaid thing???

{CUT TO THIS MORNING}

And then this happened…

BEHOLD!

THE MERMAID (OR SOMETHING)!!!

I had a lot of fun drawing and designing this mermaid. There were a few points I definitely wanted to discuss (here comes the “biological analysis” part), so here goes!

DISCLAIMER: Though I have been a total zoology nerd basically since I could read, I am not completely knowledgeable on this topic. Some of this information might not be completely true, just to let you know.

In general, I wanted this mermaid to look more fishlike than human, so there are a lot of things that I took from various fish species to piece her together. For example:

-The ears. Most fish do have ears, but they are very small and different from ours. They use not only their ears but their lateral lines to sense sounds in the water.

-The stripes. When I initially drew the mermaid the first time, she was very colorful, with horizontal stripes. I based her off this general image I had in my mind of a tropical fish of similar color and pattern, but when I googled such a fish, it didn’t exist. (**** you, imagination…) But, I did find a fish similar to my vision, albeit with horizontal stripes as opposed to vertical ones.

-The mouth. Realistically, if I were to steer in the far fishier direction, the mouth would probably be bigger, and the lips wider. The teeth were a rather confusing point, because when I googled “fish teeth”…

…well…

Let’s just say that you should never google such things. *shivers*

So I just went with small teeth.

-As far as the nose goes, I just put little slits.

-The head fin and tail, I discovered, are not only similar to each other, but similar to leaves of kelp (which the mermaid’s leg band things and dress are made of). I suppose this could possibly be a form of camoflauge. Maybe this mermaid lives in a kelp forest.

-Lastly, I’ve been kind of in self-debate about this for a little while, but I can’t decide whether my version of mermaids would lay eggs (I imagined them like shark or dogfish eggs-HEY, PEOPLE SOMETIMES CALL THOSE MERMAID’S PURSES! MAYBE I’M ONTO SOMETHING!) or if they would give birth to live young, like mammals. Either way, this mermaid has no visible breasts, which would be a mammalian trait. I’m still unsure about that. I suppose either one would work, but…hmm… *strokes imaginary goatee in thought*

Well, that just about wraps it up. Thank you for reading!

EDIT: The mermaid now has a name (or nickname), thanks to my dad: Abigail Sapien (like Abe Sapien) 😉

Hey everyone! I’ve been meaning to do this post for months, and I’m only now getting to it (wow, self).

Since late October, when my family adopted Hobbes, I’ve learned a lot of little tips and tricks for taking pictures of cats. I just thought I might share a few with you!

1. Don’t use the flash (unless you absolutely need to)

Cat eyes are very unique-they have a layer of tissue on their pupils called the tapedum, which increases the amount of light that the eye absorbs, making their night vision outstanding. This is why cat’s eyes appear to glow in the dark. That being said, if you use the flash, the tapedum kicks in, causing your cat’s eyes to glow, and therefore make them look like they’re possessed by a demon.

Terrifying, isn’t it?

2. Take lots of rapid-fire pictures

Cats, especially kittens (like Hobbes, who is now almost a year old), are very active, and will not stand still for long. So, when taking pictures of your cat running around, hold the camera button down (for iPhones and other devices like that) or push the button down really quickly a bunch of times (for regular cameras). You’ll get a lot of blurry shots out of this, but some results are hilarious.

3. Use a toy to get their attention

Cats are not exactly the most photogenic creatures (Hobbes, I’m talking about you), and they, kittens especially, have kind of a short attention span. So, one way to get and temporarily keep their attention is to wave or shake a toy behind the camera. It works, and they’ll usually look really funny because their pupils tend to dilate.

4. Capture every moment you can

Cats pretty much look cute no matter what. Most of what they do is ADORABLE, so take lots of pictures to capture the personality of your friend. Sleeping cats look SO SWEET, cats in their “you may worship me now” pose are always hilarious, and meowing shots are always good for a laugh. So take advantage of this time with your cat, and take as many pictures…as your iPhone storage will allow.

SPIDER GWEN! (Both Ms. Marvel and Spider Gwen are great comics that you guys should really read 😊)

Greta (from Ravenous)

Kymera and Batu the dragon (from Monstrous)

El and her beloved Eggo waffles (from Stranger Things, which you guys NEED TO WATCH)

(from left to right) Dan, Genna, Cat, and Yarri (from The Ruby Key)

Self-explanatory…(“Hedwig’s Theme” blaring)

And…

for the grand finale…

This one has an interesting story behind it. The idea came to me in a dream-the dream was that I was scrolling through Instagram, and I saw that a friend of mine had drawn Frank (Madman) as a cat and with a turquoise costume (???). When I woke up, I was inspired to draw Frank (left) and Joe (right) as cats. 😻